Friday 16 December 2005

Christmas dinner on an open fire?

Christmas dinner this year will not involve Turkey, there are some great butchers in the Covered Market in Oxford and it seems daft not to make full use of them. I am going to buy some venison or wild boar and spit roasting it; it seems appropriate seeing as I am living in the woods. Surely it is better to buy your meat from a butcher rather than a supermarket, if nothing else you don’t end up with loads of completely unnecessary packaging.

I did toy with the idea of making an oven and trying to roast my dinner but decided against it. I did make an oven in the garden once when I was a student. It did somewhat surprise the neighbours when I jemmied up a couple of paving slabs for the purpose. I managed to turn a chicken into carbon in 20 minutes and to burn a cake to a cinder in 7. On another occasion I was sharing with an Australian and a Kiwi and they would have barbeques for breakfast! In an attempt to out-do them my then girlfriend and I found a chimney pot and turned into in a tandoor. Well my girlfriend read Heat and looked on with what would probably best be described as great patients and I burnt my fingers a lot but the result was a fantastic all though possibly underdone tandoori chicken.

So currently the plan is to cook everything over an open fire with the Jetboil as back up. This plan is subject to change, I don't think I will be able to get pizza delivered to a grid reference on Christmas day though.

3 comments:

Dave said...

Have you thought of using a Dutch Oven
http://www.buckskin.org/Resources/Outdoor/Cooking/dutch_oven.htm
Good luck and look forward to your postings.
Have a Merry Christmas.

Dave

Hugh Sawyer said...

I have thought about a Dutch Oven but I'm going to try to avoid buying any more kit. I realised this morning that the Swedish Army Billy can that I use seals pretty well so I could put that next to the fire but away from direct heat and roast in that. Then I started getting carried away and thought it may be fun to make an eath oven after all. I guess it doesn't really mater what I do as it's not as though I'm trying to impress anyone with my culinary skills. Besides I'm fairly sure that the satisfaction gained from cooking Chrismas dinner in such a way will far out way whatever it tastes like.

Propanoic said...

Hey! I've seen you on TV! So how was it like to stay in the forest?